Empires: Dawn of the Modern World

One thousand years of history, one thousand hours of fun.

Empires: Dawn of the Modern World is a great strategy game. Though it would have been enough to simply revamp Empire Earth, the team's gone well beyond the promise of their first game by focusing on depth rather than breadth. Naturally a game that has 1000 years of military conflict as a backdrop has to have some breadth, but judged against the 3000 years presented in the previous game, 1000 years is considered tight by Stainless Steel standards.

Though I genuinely liked Empire Earth there were a few things that bothered me about the title. For one, the broad swath through history offered very little chance to really focus on specific events and characters through history. Missions had little connection to each other (other than occurring in historical sequence) and the graphics left a lot to be desired, particularly in terms of buildings. Thankfully, these issues all seem to have been addressed in this new title. (Although not technically a sequel, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World is clearly an extension of and variation on the ideas presented in Empire Earth.)

Three main campaigns are presented here. You can wage war as the English against the French in King Richard's campaign, take on the role of General Yi as he leads the Koreans against the Chinese and even direct Patton and his forces as they push from North Africa into the heart of Nazi Germany. Each of the campaigns are punctuated by spectacular cutscenes and some first-rate speeches. In all they're much more story-oriented than the missions in Empire Earth and definitely help to make the world matter to the player.

There's an increasing trend in the real-time strategy genre to get away from the notion of completely exterminating your enemy. I, for one, am thankful. While total destruction of the enemy is still fun as an option, I much prefer to have scenarios that ask the player to achieve a much more limited and focused objective. In the case of Empires you have missions that end once you capture key buildings or units. You'll even have plenty of smaller objectives within each mission (some of which are entirely optional if not entirely incidental). Having to find a way to trap some drunken soldiers on one map is a refreshing but not overly puzzling distraction.

I also have to commend Stainless Steel for breaking down the barriers between the missions. Apart from the narrative continuity between the missions within the three campaigns, you'll also find that the game offers frequent changes and updates in terms of objectives. This makes one mission feel like three in some cases. Since the maps are so huge (generally speaking), you'll rarely find yourself without new territory to explore, even when you've been playing on the same map for a full hour.

For some, this may be a bit intimidating. The very idea of sitting down and starting a mission with no clear end in sight even discouraged me at points. But the large spaces you can play in and the dynamic objectives are a huge draw and a great way to exercise your tactical skills. Though the maps are designed with clear boundaries and chokepoints, there's room for a fair bit of maneuvering here. When you add in the ability of certain units (and units from certain empires) to traverse otherwise impassable terrain, you're freed up even more to move units in behind your enemy in interesting and surprising ways.

There are four empires available in the early ages of the game and five more once you reach the later stages. Though the units you control in the single player game are restricted to the English, Koreans and Americans, you can play through the multiplayer game as any of the nine empires. The four that exist at the beginning of the game (the English, Franks, Koreans and Chinese) have the option to transform in to one of two new nations once they reach the modern age. In other words, a Frankish player will have to become either French or German once they enter the World War II age.